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An Ideal Imperfection
A space opera to end all space operas
The 29-th century. Humankind is one of many civilisations in the Milky Way following the same, inevitable road of Progress: from biological forms implied by the evolution, to digital beings (AI and immortal digital minds), still limited by the physics of our universe, to beings not limited by it, created thanks to scientific knowledge about the changing of the laws of physics.
The iron logic of Progress defines your place in the hierarchy of knowledge and power. A traditional, biological Homo sapiens is placed at its very bottom, as a relic and at the same time a sanctity of the Civilisation.
In this kind of world Adam Zamoyski appears, a 21-st century astronaut resurrected from a wreck of a spaceship. For some mysterious reason the biggest post-human and post-physical powers fight over him.
The novel has been compared to such science fiction works as Neal Stephenson’s Anathem or Greg Egan’s Diaspora.
Dukaj, like a demiurge, brings worlds into existence, giving them civilisational completeness. He invents education, family relationships, fashion, and even language. Above all, however, he shows the effects of genetic improvement of humans – a new social hierarchy and new problems with gender. For these reasons, the book is a great read – the further you get, the better it gets. Who knows, maybe it will become a cult novel?
Przemysław Czapliński
